130 ARABIA INFELIX
commercial basis, her currency and customs must be overhauled: both are enough to drive a brisk business man frantic.
The gold coin of the country should be the Turkish pound, but that is getting as rare as a Great Auk's egg. The English sovereign is accepted readily where gold is known at all, and the French Napoleon is also in circulation. Without talking about coins which no longer exist, or are purely imaginary, there are two opposition silver standards in Yamen. One is the Austrian Maria Theresa dollar, known as the rial, and dear to all Arabs as good value for the money, being as big as a four-shilling piece, and worth about half that sum. The other is the official medjidie dollar of Turkey, worth about three shillings, or as many piastres as you can get for it—it has dropped from 20 to 17 piastres in the last few years. This used to be the only legal tender, and the importation of the Austrian dollars was officially prohibited, but Arabs, outside the large towns, will not take the medjidie except as a gift, and then they look at it doubtfully.
Even the local authorities have to make all payments in rials, and eventually withdrew the prohibition against them (July, 1910).
The Theresa dollar is now accepted in payment of tithes and other dues, and the post and telegraph offices do not refuse it, though they penalize it with an exacting rate of exchange.
Small silver is represented by two-piastre and four-piastre pieces. The piastre is a nickel coin, divided into four copper hilal. No other coins are worth serious commercial consideration. Relative values vary considerably, but you can usually get ten Theresa dollars